Telling our own Stories

A few years back I was working in a college bookstore. One day I was cleaning out my email inbox and came across an email from the campus library announcing their new acquisitions. As I quickly scrolled through the list a book written by the Dalia Lama caught my attention. I felt a very great desire to read it. Books in general have an intoxicating effect on me but particularly when coupled with subjects that are close to my heart. I knew, however, that my time for reading or doing anything else was non-existent. I was working a physically and mentally demanding full-time job, going to school part-time and along with my husband raising an active family. Every spare moment I felt compelled to study so that I could maintain excellent grades. It was absolutely insane to add another thing to my schedule. I did not even have the time to go and check the book out. I sat for a moment investigating my duality. When I came to a point of inner peace I knew that I didn’t need anything outside myself to make me whole and that whatever I was supposed to experience would come to me. Within myself I said, “If I am meant to read this book it will have to grow feet and walk to me” and I hit the delete button on the email. In that very same instant my phone rang. I was surprised that it was the very librarian whose email I had just deleted. It was so uncanny that I felt a little guilty having just rejected her list of offerings. I blurted out “I just read your email” and half expected her to say I know. She said they had a lot of good books this time and was there anything that I wanted. So, I told her about the Dalia Lama’s book. This was too weird she said she would check it out for me and bring it over right away. Just when I thought she was some kind of omniscient being turns out she let me know the reason for her call. She needed to purchase a book for a class she was taking and she was calling to make sure we had it. That book did grow feet and it was a confirmation of something my teacher had taught that there are two ways to get something, one way is to chase after it and the other is to let it come to you. When you let it come to you, you know it is really yours. The challenge is stilling yourself from the chase.

Since this is my first post contributing to the Sacred Space blog, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Bibi (Khalsa) Estlund, and I’m Jagatguru Singh’s eldest daughter. One area that we would like to showcase here on the sacred space blog is the process of spirituality. One way to do that is to tell stories of meditative experiences. I would like to invite all readers to submit their own stories…but while we’re waiting on those, my own story will have to do.

I, of course, have been learning from my father since birth, but my journey into the realm of meditation did not begin until I was eleven years old. Sant Guru Dev Singh had been to visit our home in Kansas City, and taught some courses on the healing art of Sat Nam Rasayan. Papa was going through quite a transformation, and I felt he was becoming insufferable to live with.

Papa had always been a sort of macho man. He liked to work with his hands, as I’m sure would be the case with anyone who was both a massage therapist and a handyman around the house, and he’s always been a bit of a perfectionist. But once he started studying under Sant Guru Dev, things changed. He was now practicing yoga and meditation for what seemed like half the day. He couldn’t get enough of a particular tape that was nothing but rhythmic chanting.

I remember thinking that there couldn’t possibly be anything more boring than living in a place with so much emphasis on sitting with your eyes closed and being still. Every time I tried to do meditations (which is what we called sitting in a yogic posture and using a chant) I became acutely aware of how itchy my clothing was. I was an absolute master at secretly looking at the clock and checking how much time was left.

Rebelliousness is absolutely a part of my personality. I can’t stand to be told what to do (as evidenced by the state of my bedroom during my teenage years), and so I didn’t come around easily to my father telling me that meditation was something that I needed to learn. I decided that I was going to have nothing to do with it. And of course no one could make me…what surprised me though was that no one tried.

I of course knew when Sat Nam Rasayan and meditation practices were held at Papa’s office, and one day, of my own accord, I walked the block and a half to his office and arrived right on time. All of us students sat in a circle around one person who was lying down to be healed. Papa led us. First we became aware of the gravity that was pulling on all parts of ourselves and that we were simultaneously ignoring. That simple act of awareness awoke something within me. I immediately recognized the stillness in myself which for me feels like a calming, low vibration of electrical current. The pleasantness of that moment was astounding. This of course set off fireworks of thoughts ranging from the profound to the minuscule.

Papa and I locked eyes afterward. He knew that I had gotten a glimpse of the stillness. I remember that day vividly, as if it was the most important part of the process to getting there. On the other hand, I can’t remember much about the days that I was feeling grumbly and sour. Yet, I know that they were no less important to the process of learning to meditate. On this road, I’m learning that there are countless steps that we take, and some of them seem significant and others don’t. The one that I’ve just recounted seems of large significance…and then I remember about how I used to ignore gravity. It reminds me that breakthroughs come from the mundane, and that it’s all a part of the cycle.